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Portland’s Tilikum Crossing is the largest car-free bridge in the U.S. As well as having a bike and pedestrian path, it also serves TriMet buses, Portland Streetcar and the MAX Orange Line light rail service. (Dronescape/Travel Portland)

Thanks to mild temperatures year-round in Portland, al fresco dining at places such as 10 Barrel Brewing is possible well into the fall. (Christian Heeb / Travel Oregon)

Food carts began appearing around Portland in the early 2000s but didn’t really take off until the recession later that decade. (Emma Yardley)

Tour guide and food-cart ambassador Brett Burmeister holds out servings of pulled pork and black-eyed peas from A Little Bit of Smoke food cart on one of his downtown Food Carts Portland tours. (Emma Yardley)

During a cocktail stop at Sidecar 11, Forktown tour guide Laurel MacMillan explains the history of craft distilleries in Portland and how they’ve affected the bar scene in North Portland. (Emma Yardley)

By Emma YardleySpecial to the Star

Thu., Dec. 22, 2016

PORTLAND, ORE.-There are few sure things in this world, but here’s one of them: If you go to Portland, you will eat well.

With a winning combination of fertile farmland, a year-round growing season and proximity to both the Pacific Ocean and eastern Oregon ranchland — along with the pioneering attitude of its citizens — this riverside city has been quietly living the farm-to-table lifestyle long before it was cool.

“We are so proud that there are so many local producers of just about anything you can name,” says Heidi Burnette, owner of Forktown, a food-centred walking tour company in Portland. “It’s rare when a restaurant doesn’t source its meat, cheeses, bread, vegetables, wine, beer or even its pickles locally.”

With more than 20 farmers markets within the city limits, it’s easy for chefs to pick up seasonal ingredients to ignite their creativity — and craft dishes that can only be tasted in Portland.

“So many of our farmers are growing produce that’s meant to be consumed here and not be shipped across the country,” says Burnette. “For example, different varieties of berries are being bred for really intense flavours, but are so fragile they need to be eaten right away or they’ll bruise in their containers.”

Oregon has no sales tax, and shipping costs are low within the state because the growing zones are so close to each other (Portland has strict rules on urban sprawl, to protect local farmland), which means customers can taste top-notch cuisine at a fraction of what it would cost in other major U.S. cities.

Access to affordable produce is also one of the reasons food carts started popping up all over empty Portland parking lots in the mid-2000s — proprietors were able to produce tasty finger food at an affordable price and take it straight to the people.

“Portland is a very unique street food capital,” says Brett Burmeister, a food-cart tour guide and managing editor of Food Carts Portland, a website that keeps tabs on the city’s cart trends and trappings. “We have laws on the books that say no business in the right of way (on roads), so we never really grew a food-truck scene.”

To work within the rules, food vendors wheeled carts to deserted downtown lots, turned their window towards the sidewalk, hooked into whatever power source they could find, and began serving the ravenous lunch-break crowd everything from bulgogi beef tacos to handmade ice-cream sandwiches.

“The idea was focus on one item, one item that nobody else is making, and do it very well,” says Burmeister. “It’s hard to find a hot dog in this city. I could get you a reindeer sausage or homemade bratwurst but not a hot dog.”

There are now upwards of 600 food carts at any given time, grouped in dozens of “pods” in different neighbourhoods throughout the city, each dishing out their own creations while serving a civic — and economic — need. But it wasn’t just low produce prices that spurred this surge.

“The recession hit Portland really hard,” explains Forktown guide Laurel MacMillan while conducting a tour in the artsy North Mississippi Avenue neighbourhood. “A lot of people who had high-tech corporate jobs said, ‘You know what, screw it! I’m going to open a food cart because it only takes $5,000 and it’s what I really love doing.’

“We like doing things our way. It’s that progressive spirit.”

That industrious, can-do way of thinking weaves its way through the kitchen and behind the bar in Portland, with more breweries than any other city in the world — the number sits at around 70 — and a new crop of artisanal distilleries coming up behind.

“It’s amazing to be able to eat out and have pretty much everything on the plate and in the glass be almost 100 per cent locally sourced,” says Burnette. “This makes us proud to be Portlanders, and we want to share that with others.”

Get there: Air Canada offers a seasonal direct flight from Toronto to Portland International Airport (PDX) and many airlines — including Air Canada, United and Alaska Airlines — have easy connecting flights year-round with return tickets starting in the $350 range.

Get around: Portland has a comprehensive public-transit system using a combination of MAX light rail, Portland Streetcar and TriMet bus systems, so exploring the city on a $2.50 (U.S.) (2.5 hours) or $5 (all day) ticket is really easy. There is also a train that goes straight from the airport into the city — the first of its kind on the west coast — making getting from PDX to Portland a cinch.

Do this:

Forktown Food Tours: Discover the revitalized North Mississippi Avenue neighbourhood through its food, history and people on this fun, finger-licking food tour. Taste everything from Thai noodles to Guatemalan sea salt. Details: forktownfoodtoursportland.com

Food Carts Portland Tours: With more than 600 food carts to choose from in Portland, sometimes it’s nice to have an expert by your side. Let Brett Burmeister lead you to the best of the best on one of his entertaining downtown food cart tours. Details: foodcartsportland.com/tours

When to go: Portland is predictably temperate: warm sunshine in summer and early fall, rain showers in winter and early spring. On average there are 144 sunny days and 130 partly cloudy days, but it rarely goes below freezing so a fleece, umbrella and waterproof shoes is usually all you’ll need to face the wintertime weather here.

Do your research: travelportland.com

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